Slashdot Mirror
Cables Show US Seeks Assange
prakslash writes "The Sydney Morning Herald reports that diplomatic cables they obtained show the U.S. investigation into possible criminal conduct by Julian Assange has been ongoing for more than a year, despite denials by the U.S. State Department and the Australian Foreign Minister. Further, the Australian diplomats expect that the U.S. will seek to extradite Assange to the U.S. on charges including espionage and conspiracy relating to the release of classified information by WikiLeaks."
Let's demand that Assange be issued the Congressional Medal of Honor and go after some of the lying scum that he helped expose.
It has been shown time and time again, journalism is exempted from these kind of things. They are the recipients of information, not the ones giving out secrets.
Perhaps 20 years ago, people might have drawn a distinction between publishing on a computer network and publishing on paper, but today, those distinctions are muddy and in transition. (Before long, the ONLY way to keep publications secret will be to write them down and share them secretly.)
We have a nation of law enforcers who are not enforcing the law... they are enforcing the will of the leadership which is NOT the same thing. I think law enforcement needs to go back to enforcing the law and to remain WITHIN the law when doing so.
heh. he posts under cloak of ac. and he dares talk about credibility.
oh, the ironing !
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
It's becoming more and more evident by the day that the so-called "charges" that put him on the run in the first place are bullshit. This is about the US capturing Assange any way possible.
I'd love to see Assange go somewhere that's seeking to extradite Bush and/or Cheney and offer a swap.
fencepost
just a little off
You first.
Not only did US personnel break their own moral, ethical and legal boundaries but now they want to kill the messenger. Going after Assange makes the US look more like China than a democracy.
Firing squad is reserved for soliders. Hermann Goering requested death by firing squad, but they said no, you're too scummy to die like a soldier... so he suicided with cyanide instead.
Assange would be considered a spy so they'd probably hang him, like they did the Rosenbergs.
Except that they don't have much of a case against him, so they're probably just taking a wait-and-see attitude. If they have anything even remotely concrete to charge him with, they would've done it by now and extradited him from Britain already. It would be easier to get him from Britain which is a US lapdog, than Sweden, which is not so much.
However, the Australian embassy in Washington reported in February that “the US investigation into possible criminal conduct by Mr Assange has been ongoing for more than a year”....
The released diplomatic cables also show that the Australian government considers the prospect of extradition sufficiently likely that, on direction from Canberra, Mr Beazley sought high level US advice on “the direction and likely outcome of the investigation” and “reiterated our request for early advice of any decision to indict or seek extradition of Mr Assange”.
So, in other words, asking for advanced warning if the US does even make plans to request extradition equates to "US intends to chase Assange"? Really? I mean I have no doubt that if the US thought it could bring charges against him that didn't possibly fall under First Amendment protection, it probably would, but that is the evidence you have? The Australian embassy asking for advanced warning? That's not evidence. That's barely above speculation. Actually, no, it is speculation.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Anyone who is surprised by this (or who thinks that Sweden is not a part of it) is simply not paying attention.
After all, Assange couldn't have done it himself, could he?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You'd think the guy performed a punk concert in a church or something.
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
PARTY FINDS YOU!
His crime? Journalism.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Because releasing information regarding unethical practices (to say the least) conducted by the US and other corporate entities is bad. Cue comparison photo:
http://m5.paperblog.com/i/8/82628/hero-comparison-wikileaks-vs-facebook-assange-L-NiA62d.jpeg
Previewing comments are for sissies!
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/28/shawn-sullivan-extradition-blocked-america-most-wanted-pedophile-us_n_1633358.html
I'm sorry, try again. Why is this guy blocked but not Assange?
Firing squad is reserved for soliders.
Someone is wrong on the internet.
Idaho banned execution by firing squad in a law which took effect on July 1, 2009.[34] This left Oklahoma as the only state left in the United States that utilizes this method of execution (and only as a secondary method). On October 11, 2011, Florida State Representative Brad Drake sponsored a bill to give Florida death row inmates the option of death by firing squad.[35]
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Rosenbergs were executed in the electric chair, as were the German saboteurs that were executed in DC jail during WW2.
That is a very valid point. I'm sure his lawyer, once they determine he is in Guantanamo Bay and labeled and an "enemy combatant" would want to use that in his defense. Just have to wait for a few years to meet their client, a few more years of trials just to see if a foreigner held in a prison off of US soil is eligible for a trial in the US Judicial system, etc.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Or did wikileaks fake another release?.
Oh, I'm sure they're real... because they don't actually say anything.
Did you read the article? The cables said that the Australian embassy asked about, and requested advance warning of, whether the U.S. decides to indict Assange. No information whatsoever suggesting that they do have any such intention. And they cables also said that the U.S. "investigated" Assange. Well, duh, of course they did. WikiLeaks was the source of a significant leak of classified material, of course they investigated the leaks.
The cables don't contain anything we don't already know. Most specifically, they don't give any information to the idea that the U.S. intends to indict, much less, extradite Assange.
But if Wikileaks has no credibility
no, mr ANONYMOUS COWARD, its you that have no cred.
at least post using an alt. they are free and easy to get. there's a clue for you, on your next shill post.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out "I TOLD YOU SO!"
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
they'd probably hang him, like they did the Rosenbergs.
Both of them got the electric chair.
Grow up.
That would be hoot and half! They could call it "Pussy Leaks."
I'm not sure that in Putinist Russia, such a thing would be permitted, though. Live from the Gulag . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
It has been shown time and time again, journalism is exempted from these kind of things. They are the recipients of information, not the ones giving out secrets.
That's generally true, but then there is no protection for, say, breaking into an office and stealing documents in order to publish them. And there is a continuum between active law breaking of that sort, and completely passive receipt of unsolicited information. If I were Assange, I would certainly not want to visit the US to find out if some one of my many activities had pushed far enough along that continuum that they could make a criminal case against me.
The USA is completing the transition to a banana republic. I had hope Obama would slow down the tyranny and the imperialist war making, but we know how that turned out. We're poorer than an time since the great depression, thanks to Bush. I'm 65 and a vet - I was a patriot, but the re-election of Bush ended that. Instead of feeling ashamed over what Assange revealed, the power structure, decided to seek vengence. I have no doubt, that in the end the US Government will kill him - probably with a drone.
No indictment, no charges. No prosecution. Simple inquiry.
Yet Swedish authorities refuse multiple invitations to interview Assange for inquiry purposes in UK - including the past month, in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Instead, they push for extradition on contravention of International treaty law.
This is a chess game, being played on behalf of the Nation that incarcerates more of its own people than did Josef Stalin. The "Land of the Free".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"In a statement issued after the Ecuadorean decision to grant Mr Assange political asylum, Mr Hague said the UK was under a "binding obligation" to extradite him to Sweden."
They're willing to throw centuries of tradition on diplomatic immunity out the window because of a "binding obligation" to extradite him.
When he hasn't been charged, his accusers have left the country, and he sought (and was granted) permission to leave Sweden in the first place. If you don't smell something rotten here, you've got a clothespin over your nose...
If you had read the article, you'd see that it is based on the Australians speculating. There's not much to quibble with the speculation (though the Slashdot title is misleading).
But you'll also note that they think an indictment would be based on conspiracy. And in that area, journalists can get nailed. If you are just receiving information, journalistic protections are fairly powerful. But if you work too closely with the informant, then conspiracy can raise its head.
Let me give two examples (hypothetical):
1) Manning sends Assange the files unsolicited. Assange would be protected.
2) Assange discusses with Manning how to hide his involvement in the disclosure. The discussion might lean towards conspiracy.
The first was just receiving information. The second crosses the line from just transferring information to other activities.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
- do push-ups and sit-ups every morning (reduces sores and reduces chances of deep vein thrombosis!)
- don't just eat pizza and ramen! Consume at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily
- keep hydrated! You're in England now, Tea is cheap!
- Be sure to catch the morning sun! Find a sunny window and soak in the nourishing strength of the rays. You don't want rickets!
- personal grooming improves self-esteem and keeps up morale. Just because you're stuck in a tiny room with few visitors doesn't mean you should let your hair grow out and start braiding. Beards are for nerds and mountain men. Buzz cut looks professional and sharp!
- along with personal grooming, iron your clothes for public appearances (err...skype video chats). A snappy dresser shows leadership and determination.
- use the free time you have wisely; catch up on lost episodes of Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and Mad Men - hey, you might even learn something.
- solitude = deep thought = time to read! Like past unjustely imprisoned geniuses, Napoleon, Galileo, Ann Frank ect..., all found solace and comfort in their books. Cherish the printed page!
- The Harrods food court is across the street; use this opportunity to train your culinary palette. I suggest starting with Mexican and working your way to Indonesian.
- remember, it could always be worse! Nelson Mandela didn't have access to hi-speed internet (though he did get daily walks out doors: but everythings a trade off!)
- Oh and lastly, never forget; the first duty of the political prisoner is escape! Good luck Sir!
He didnt break into anything.
Which fake cables? The fake cables faked by a Pakistani newspaper?
Haven't you finished beating your wife?
Yeah! Just leave Hermione the hell alone!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Who decides what is and isn't ethical?
Individuals.
Have we all ceded that responsibility to Mr. Assange and not our elected officials?
I wouldn't say our elected officials are ethical. But apparently as long as you agree with them, everything is a-okay.
lets be even more clear about this.
its not RAPE as most of the world defines it. its the peculiar definition that sweden uses, that he's ONLY accused of.
and I'm sorry, I'll say this bluntly, with the full spectrum of all the 'bad shit' that one person can do to another, sweden's definition of 'rape' is not quite enough to justify all the hooplah that's being made of this. sure, he was a heel, perhaps (we really don't know, though, its a lot of he-said-she-said, really). but I'm not sure this is international extradition worthy.
people do a HELL of a lot worse and get away with it.
(like, say, many of the people mentioned in the leaked cables... julian may have fucked two women, but people in the cables have fucked far more and far worse. THIS is the issue, not julian.)
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Who decides what is and isn't ethical? Have we all ceded that responsibility to Mr. Assange and not our elected officials?
I'm sorry, but what ever gave you the indication that we trusted our 'elected' officials to be the keepers of proper ethics to begin with?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Rosenbergs got the chair, not the noose
I think sharia law spells out rape punishments already. Getting a conviction will be hard though, as a woman's testimony is only worth 1/7 of a man's.
Each and every god damned one of us has a responsibility to identify what is ethical and what is not and call it out as such.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It seems that neither the general public nor the Assanage understand the game-plan. It is fairly easy. They intend on making him so paranoid that he will become a prisoner of his own making. Even if he manages to get out of London unmolested by the British police their security aparatus, and get to Ecuador -- he will be a wanted man across the entire Commonwealth spectrum, because in effect by leaving he will be breaking British law. That will effectively make him both a most wanted and persona-non-grata within much of the world. The only places where he will be able to travel freely would be within the new Bolivarian states, Russia and perhaps some of the Middle East.
But even than he won't be able to travel freely at all, and perhaps will not be able to step out within the confines of his future place of living in Ecuador, because there will be many who would want to capture and deliver him to any British enclave. (in Americas think Stanley, or Georgetown, or even Ottawa).
And the best part about it -- all Americans have to do is to continue denying that they are actively perusing him while giving subtle hints and "leaks" that they actually do.
Why don't you read some cables and decide for yourself?
2) Assange discusses with Manning how to hide his involvement in the disclosure. The discussion might lean towards conspiracy.
Conspiracy to leak information that as a foreign national on foreign soil he had no legal obligation to keep secret.
Oh wait, I forgot US law applies across the entire planet, and probably Mars now.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Its not RAPE as most of the world defines it.
Yes it is. Among other things, he is a accused of having non-consensual sex with a sleeping woman. That is considered rape in the US, Australia, and all of the EU. The UK would not have extradited him if the actions he is accused of weren't a crime in the UK; read the Supreme Court's Extradition Judgement for more details.
But your goverment must really switch to a more democratic perspective if they want to be legitimated to be World's policemen
if free market is supposed to be able to solve every problem, why do i still need to scratch my balls?
Someone is citing wikipedia on the internet.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Warning: Parent link is NSFA (Not Safe For America).
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
It is clear the reopening of Sweden's investigation into Assange, and the extradition proceedings, were at the behest of the Americans, but I am puzzled. Why does the US want to eventually extradite Assange from Sweden rather than more quickly from the UK? In this kind of political case, the UK is likely to be at least as cooperative as Sweden. Who has a good theory?
Spies get shot. An established tradition. In fact, I am a little surprised he is still alive.
I am completely tired of this Assange guy. What should I care about big drama show?
They *should* go after him. The rationalization this was journalism is a farce. Lets take the assumed analogue of the oppressed Syrian citizen tweeting against the regime or telling of some evil deed done by them. In each case the Assange defenders would say, "the individual is speaking out against the oppressive government getting the truth out for the world to see." In one case, the actor posts the information to express to the world the tyranny under which they live to maybe just someday restore some kind of liberty in their lives, at great risk to their own life. In the other case the actor posts the information with the express purpose of shaming and harming the government that authored them.
What would the position of the slashdotters be if Assange weren't leaking classified information, but, say, private information of EU citizens? I pick EU due to all the laws in place regarding personal information. Suppose he was posting gigs of credit card records indicating the purchase of a extra small Fleshlights. They would be outraged that their personal information was being shared with the world and now everyone knew they bought an extra small Fleshlight.
"But these are government documents, they are our governments and they work for US." (Us the first person objective plural, not the estados unidos) Sure, they do work for us. But governments have the right to their own secrets. Assange was knowingly distributing them with malice. I would hope and expect them to pursue charges.
What's funny is if the Obama administration were actually as evil as Assange's fanbois feel*, Assange would already be dead. After all, Obama seems to have no qualms about extrajudicial assassination of US citizens....
*- Heh - almost typed "think". As if Assange's groupies even had that capacity.
What a lovely parting gift.
Pull my finger for my public key.
as he was never here. this sets a drastic precedent which will allow any country to do the same.
Sorry, I "honestly" thought the source was obvious.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
As the woman was a girlfriend living in his house and sleeping in his bed on a regular basis, "charges" would be laughed out of court.
When is the last time you heard of widespread terrorist attacks by buddhists? Or Sikhs? Hindu? That's right, that never happens. It is always muslims.
Or Christians. Hell there was one of those just a couple weeks ago.
If they have anything even remotely concrete to charge him with
There's no need - the President can send him to Gitmo for years without bringing charges, as a lesson to other journalists not to mess with the USG.
<WP:NDAA>
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I could argue against you here, saying he was not charged etc etc. But why should I when the former Swedish head prosecution does it much better:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/48396086/Assange-Case-Opionion-Sven-Erik-Alhem
Wouldn't Obama just have Assange assassinated if he were as evil as the /. crowd apparently believes?
The question is answered in the second paragraph of your link:
"Two judges sitting in London allowed an appeal against extradition by fugitive Shawn Sullivan, 43, after the American authorities refused to give an assurance that he would not be placed on a controversial sex offenders treatment programme in Minnesota."
Presumably, Sweden was able to provide sufficient guarantees to satisfy the UK that the Swedish government would not place Mr. Assange in a controversial sex offenders treatment program in Minnesota.
Add to that the fact that Sweden and UK are both signatories to the EAW framework as EU members, which streamlines the process for extradition between two EU member states, while the US hasn't yet been admitted to the EU, and you've got a fairly clear picture of why the UK would extradite Assange to Sweden, but decline to extradite Mr. Sullivan to the US.
Yep welcome to the USSA comrade, where the only free men are the rich.
BTW I think every one of us that have said about a billion fucking times here that "Its not about rape, its about the USSA snatching his ass" deserves a fricking apology from all those "No its not, its about a crime, its raaape!" dumbasses, so line the hell up. Oh and WE TOLD YA SO!
Its pretty God damned sad when fricking Ecuador is the symbol of freedom and the USSA is the slimy country, but this ain't the country your grandparents fought for in WWII, its turned foul, the ground has gone sour thanks to a cabal of WallStreet, the MICs and PMCs, and the gov, all in bed together.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
http://m5.paperblog.com/i/8/82628/hero-comparison-wikileaks-vs-facebook-assange-L-NiA62d.jpeg
Oh, hell yea, that is goin' up on mah facebook wall!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Let's look at this another way. Government workers are employees of all taxpaying citizens. That's what a Republic is. If the IT department discovers an employee is watching porn at work, he should probably report it to their manager or to HR. That's what Assange is doing. The government has no more right to keep their actions secret from the citizens than you have to keep what you're doing at work secret from your boss.
A hint on how ethical are your elected officials are in Wikileaks.
Well ok, here's the SFW version: Come on, read some of the cables and make up your own mind.
It is quite unfortunate and demonstrates that US leaders still don't "get" it. They think that prosecuting Assange will have some kind of effect on Wikileaks when nothing could be further from the truth.... or they're just trying to get back at him out of spite (same reason they tortured Manning when he was obviously guilty and a simple court martial would have seen him put in prison for the rest of his life. Why degrade ourselves?)
The reason the US isn't explicitly asking for extradition is probably because we intend to perform an "extraordinary rendition" and snag him from Sweden illegally (but with Swedish cooperation), then imprison him in Gitmo forever without trial.
I wish I were joking. My grandfather volunteered for WWII; It makes me sad that we have thrown all the things he fought for in the trash can, first in a blind attempt to fight communism (when the prudent course was just to let it die under its own weight just like the USSR did), then in a blind attempt to fight a "war on drugs", and now in a blind attempt to fight a "war on terror".
Oh well... so many Americans are petty and FYGM these days. I guess it's no surprise that our politicians are too. When we had the Soviets to fight against it forced us to push all objections out of the way and cooperate for the common good. We managed to do such great and big things back then... We voted to tax ourselves to build the Interstate Highway system. Imagine proposing a tax to build a national "Internet Highway" today!
The threat of communism put the Fear Of God(TM) into the rich and forced them to share the wealth, which in turn improved everyone's lives. Now it's all slipping away.
What a sad state of affairs.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
He has not accused been formally accused of anything yet.
My #2 has nothing to do with leaking information or obligations to keep a secret. It concerns Assange hypothetically assisting Manning in hiding Mannings involvement. I'm not talking about Assange saying he won't say it was Manning. I'm saying if Assange offered any technical advice to Manning on how to secretly transfer information in order to hide Mannings involvement, that could fall under the area of conspiracy. Discussion or assistance of a crime is conspiracy. Doesn't matter if the party would otherwise be shielded by law. The conspiracy itself strips those protections. Same would happen with a lawyer.
As for where the law applies, many laws apply outside territories.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Don't be purposefully obtuse.
IF Mr. Assange can be shown to have *solicited* the data from PFC Manning, then the charge is espionage, which IS a crime in the United States, regardless of where you happen to be sitting when you're collecting your data.
As such, it would be completely reasonable for the US to request his extradition to face charges of espionage here in the US. This would be complicated by several things:
1) Whether the extradition treaty recognizes espionage as an extraditable offense - some do, some do not;
2) Espionage is a capital offense, and so the death penalty *is* a legitimate concern - some countries will refuse to extradite because capital punishment is an option, some countries will require a guarantee that no death penalty will be sought, and other countries will simply refuse.
3) They must have evidence that he committed espionage - i.e., actively sought out and solicited the information - and was not simply a passive recipient of the data that PFC Manning leaked.
If he was a passive recipient of the information, then you're right - he had no obligation to keep it secret, and he was engaged in nothing more than journalism - sloppy journalism, given the partial redaction of informant names and info in many of the documents - but journalism all the same. If he actively solicited the classified documents - i.e., sought out PFC Manning, encouraged him to use his access to leak the documents, and published them, then that would be considered espionage, whether you're a Chinese hacker, a journalist in DC, or a wikileaks founder in Australia.
apology from all those "No its not, its about a crime, its raaape!" dumbasses
Indeed, let those "it's about crime" people explain why Sweden was unwilling to guarantee that they won't extradite Assange to US. If this doesn't say, "we actually want him for US", I don't know what does.
But governments have the right to their own secrets
Sorry, but our faith in the US government has been sufficiently shaken that we no longer trust them when they say, "These secrets are being kept to protect the US." Everything you said would be true...if the US were the bastion of freedom and of the enlightenment principles upon which it was founded. Instead, the US government has turned into a machine for inflating corporate profits at the expense of its own citizens and of citizens in other countries.
A democracy requires an open government; yet over the past 30 years, the executive branch has done more and more things in secret. Domestic and foreign policy decisions are made in secret. Decisions that affect the lives of millions of people are shrouded in mystery. It is hard for anyone to believe that the amount of classified information is really justified by the interests of public safety or of national security.
Palm trees and 8
incarcerates more of its own people than did Josef Stalin
That's because Stalin killed them all: Genocide list
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Oh man, you are so edgy.
If he is in the UK (as he has been for some time), why wouldn't we just ask the UK to extradite him? That's the only thing that doesn't seem to add up when people yell, "The rape charge is just an excuse to extradite to the US"!
Is Sweden our extradition bitch or something? They say yes to every request we make???
He didnt break into anything.
True--as far as we know he wasn't at that end of the continuum. But my point was, I think we do not know that he was a completely passive recipient of unsolicited information. How far did he go in promoting the "theft" of the material that was disclosed? What actions did he take to encourage it? What direction did he provide as to selection of material?
There's a lot we don't know about how he operated, and there's plenty of gray area in which to look for plausible criminal charges. Note: to look for them--I am not claiming that he did break any law that could be applied, just that the possibility cannot be ruled out.
Everything fine except that any power body, when it's able to maintain classified information abuses of this power. This is the main reason we need a watchdog to make sure that these secrets do not violate any constitutional principle. Also, quoting Eric Schmidt, "if one has to keep something secret, he should not have done it in the first place". This of course does not apply to me screwing my girlfriend's ass with a giant dildo because it does not violate any constitutional principle, but it certainly applies to a government trying to restrict freedom of speech
if free market is supposed to be able to solve every problem, why do i still need to scratch my balls?
Swedish authorities refuse multiple invitations to interview Assange for inquiry purposes in UK
That's nothing. I find it more telling that (according to what I read) they refused to guarantee that Assange won't be extradited to US. He asked if if Sweden guarantees that he will not be sent to US afterwards and Swedish side was unable to guarantee that.
They are really the exact opposite of subtle.
Releasing credit card records wouldn't cause an Arab Spring.
Or would it ;)
I have no idea. The best I can come up with is that the US has been giving Assange a lot of reasons to be paranoid so that he will be paranoid. Then they instruct Sweden to let him leave the country and then request extradition. They may even let slip some clues that would suggest to Assange that he will be in danger in Sweden. That way, even though there is no threat to him in Sweden, it appears to Assange as though there is a threat, and he ends up wasting all his time and resources in fighting an extradition that isn't actually a threat to him. In this case, the UK is being as lapdoggy as they can be in pursuing the extradition with bizarre zeal, further scaring Assange into taking steps like fleeing into the embassy of Ecuador. Or maybe there really is something rotten going on in Sweden, but in that case why did they allow him to leave Sweden in the first place?
It's not about Assange. It's about human rights, yours, mine, anyone's. The question is: Is it ok for a government to pursue and prosecute a foreign national, a person, any person for speaking or repeating the truth simply because those truths are embarrassing to the government.
You should care about the rights of Assange only for as long as you care about your own.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Sweden is arguably more of a "US lapdog" in some aspects for a number of reasons. First of all, the massive financial pressure on politicians from piratebay case that has been on for years from US side has inherently made Swedish authorities easier to pressure. Then there's the technological and military cooperation, where Swedish national pride of having its own fighter jet is completely dependent on US goodwill - US licenses a lot of tech needed to build Gripen.
There are several other impacts as well, such as the pressure that came from "war on terror" and massively negative view Bush took on countries that chose to keep on being neutral, which made Sweden cave on several policies badly, one of them extraordinary rendition. In many ways GB has been protected by its sheer size from these, as while Downing Street has generally been keep on pleasing US, GB as a country is still big enough to resist significant amounts of financial and political pressure. Sweden's capacity to do the same is unfortunately much smaller.
Finally there's a matter of Sweden's own internal problems with rising wave of extremist feminism, which in this case was cleverly exploited by US.
IF Mr. Assange can be shown to have *solicited* the data from PFC Manning, then the charge is espionage, which IS a crime in the United States, regardless of where you happen to be sitting when you're collecting your data.
Just because it's a crime in the United States doesn't mean the US has jurisdiction over a foreigner on foreign soil. Possession of cannabis is a crime in the US. Are we going to start extraditing potheads from the Netherlands?
If you are not in a country, or a citizen of the country you are not obligated to obey that country's laws. Period.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Julian Assange is not a traitor. The Rosenbergs were. You cannot be a declared an open citizen of another country and be a "traitor" to another. What he did was not even a crime, and the notion of extradition is dubious.
This is the central point that many, nearly all, willfully fail to acknowledge. If the US just wanted him why bother trumping up charges in Sweden, involving all these extra people and complicate things to no end instead of just charging him with the crime they would actually try to get him for? They wouldn't. They'd just charge him and be done with it.
Yeah, they would. More than likely some in the US government and intelligence services want revenge and more importantly (in their minds) to warn others against doing anything similar in the future. They don't need to extradite him to the US to do this. All they need to do is put some pressure on the Swedes to convict him of something and send him to jail. It's not likely that the US would actually put Assange on trial, give him more exposure to the general public, and make him even more of a martyr. My take is that they're trying to smear him without getting their hands dirty and drawing more attention to the issue (including the details of the leaks and the problems that led to the leak) from those not already paying attention.
Perfectly legal in what jurisdiction? American jurisdiction does not apply to foreign citizens on foreign soil at all. Not even for murder, to make things clear. Now if his home country decides that's a crime, that's fine.
I'm saying if Assange offered any technical advice to Manning on how to secretly transfer information in order to hide Mannings involvement, that could fall under the area of conspiracy.
By that logic, notice on Wikileak's homepage suggesting the use of GnuPG/PGP would create a conspiracy. I think the US' authorities are out of control and desperately need to be taught a lesson in civility.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
That's a technicality--the process is to talk to him and then make the accusation. They haven't charged him because of purely procedural reasons that are entirely his own doing. It's like trying to evade a process server.
In one case, the actor posts the information to express to the world the tyranny under which they live to maybe just someday restore some kind of liberty in their lives, at great risk to their own life. In the other case the actor posts the information with the express purpose of shaming and harming the government that authored them.
Uh... both of those cases are valid for both Assange and the Syrian example. The Syrian is oppressed AND wants to shame/harm the tyrant. Same with Assange. You know, USA and corporations doing generally dickish moves on a global scale is a form of oppression. It's at a greater distance since it's their actions abroad, but they're still trying to impose their will on those that don't want it, and at the cost of others.
What would the position of the slashdotters be if Assange weren't leaking classified information, but, say, private information of EU citizens?
I think that's been done. Yeah, here we go:
In January 2011, Rudolf Elmer, a former Swiss banker, passed on data containing account details of 2,000 prominent people to Assange, who stated that the information will be vetted before being made publicly available at a later date.[168]
Soooo, while it's a violation of privacy, if it exposes dastardly people doing dastardly thing, then all the more power to him. Seriously, screw those bankers and tax dodgers. And specifically, all the more power to Rudolf Elmer, the guy who actually leaked this information. Wikileaks is just doing the dissemination and proofing. (and keeping the source a secret, but that ball has been dropped.) Also making sure that the data being leaked only punishes those who really deserve it. They're not in the business of giving out everyone's credit card numbers. Duh.
But if they did, sure, we'd be pissed. Well I would anyway. What can I say, I'd feel bad for those poor lonely Europeans. (But still, ew)
But governments have the right to their own secrets. Assange was knowingly distributing them with malice
Yes. And exposed some extremely bad activities and people in doing so. He trampled all over the privacy laws, which is a problem, to expose an even bigger problem.
I'm all for him being charged and punished for violating those privacy rights. As long as I could trust the people in power to not charge him with bullshit charges, indefinitely detain him, or kill him. Which, quite sadly, I cannot. There's rising amounts of proof that I can't trust those people not to be dicks. So with that in mind, I'm perfectly fine with Assange doing what he can to keep out of the grasp of those who would almost assuredly not give him a fair trial.
Meanwhile, I pretty damn pissed that my government is being this vile. I would prefer that they acknowledge their mistakes, thank him for bringing them to light, and make some serious efforts to weed out the corruption and vileness in the system.
Haha.... you won't catch so easily FBI man. ;)
(It's actually illegal for State Dept (and probably other Dept's) employees to read the leaked cables, though I'm not implying that I work for the State Dept.)
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
It was. I was just making the small joke that you were using wikipedia to "prove" someone was wrong.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
He hasn't been charged with anything, and he doesn't become a criminal until after he is convicted.
I'm glad that your understanding of due process isn't how the civilized world works.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Not unless Rumsfeld, Clinton and Obama are included as well. By all accounts, Obama has been WORSE than Bush concerning leakers, war crimes, cyber warfare, etc.
This is the most insightful post I've read so far in this thread. Assange is not traitorous, because Assange is not a US citizen! And he's a journalist, no matter what others may feel about his stories. Exposing this kind of crap is his job.
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
Sweden cannot make any guarantees that Assange will not be extradited 1) because the US has not (officially) leveled any indictment against Assange. 2) Because they are not going to subvert their own legal processes vis. extradition, because a foreign state says so.
From http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/26/ecuador-julian-assange-extradition-us?newsfeed=true
"The senior legal adviser said that under extradition law, the concept of "specialty" ensures an individual can only be extradited to one country â" in the case of Assange, Sweden. Once legal proceedings in that country have been completed, the individual is given a 45-day leave, during which they are free to go where they want.
Assange should, therefore, be free to travel to any other state â" including the UK, Ecuador or Australia â" once legal proceedings against him are completed in Sweden.
However, specialty can be waived by the country granting the initial extradition request â" in this case the UK â" thereby allowing an individual to be extradited to a third country.
The senior legal adviser to the Ecuadoreans said that the home secretary, Theresa May, would need to waive specialty under section 58 of the Extradition Act 2003, before Assange could be extradited from Sweden to the US.
Despite repeated requests from Ecuador, the Foreign Office has not said whether or not May intends to exercise her powers to allow for any potential future extradition to the US.
"The concerns that Ecuador has in relation to that whole process is that some states â" not least of which the US â" have been known to hold back on their extradition requests, to a timely moment, when they can serve the process with greatest impact," the senior legal adviser said. "And so the concern would be that the US has in mind a request for extradition on the basis of WikiLeaks charges."
_____
As it stands now, he is facing a serious sex-crimes investigation in Sweden, which he did to himself, by-the-way.
Rule #1 of being wanted by state security services, don't fuck groupies.
This Sig does not Exist.
If I were any more surprised by this information, I would be awake.
I see two scenarios:
(a) Assange gains political asylum in Ecuador. He never stands before a judge in Sweden.
(b) Assange is extradited to Sweden, spends 12-24 hours in custody, and then he's extradited to USA, where he is "allocated" to Guantanamo Bay or some other oubliette. He never stands before a judge in Sweden.
Either way, the charges made against him by citizens of Sweden will never be pressed nor resolved. Either way, anyone who wants to call him out for "justice for his sex crimes" will not see justice done.
You're wrong. Articles about the cables like this one appeared months before the women even talked to the police. The three months after was just when they started releasing the cables.
Dilbert RSS feed
Which might be funny if it hadn't already been beaten to death. There's actually a more subtle joke in there, which is that the Wikipedia basher, having smugly demonstrated his profound knowledge of the topic at hand with just a few keystrokes, never bothers to reveal his superior source of information.
"Oh wait, I forgot US law applies across the entire planet, and probably Mars now."
That's basically true. If you commit a crime which affects US interests or citizens, and the US government indicts you on criminal charges, and if you end up on US soil, you can be arrested and tried for those charges, ask any number of Eastern European hackers, or Mexican cartel members.
In fact, with the exception of (Islamic) terrorism, this is pretty much US government policy, and it used to be true of terror suspects, as well.
Before 9/11, Osama bin-Laden was an indicted co-conspirator on a host of terrorism related charges. If the US government had been able to get him, he would have stood trial in the US.
After 9/11, the US decided to deal with terrorism as war-crimes, and terrorists, even if they had only talked-about doing something, are now subject to death-by-drone, without a trial.
So no, Assange would not be sent to Guantanamo, he'd just be another in a long line of foreign nationals sought-after by the US Dept. of Justice, (as opposed to CIA drones).
This Sig does not Exist.
Yes it is. Among other things, he is a accused of having non-consensual sex with a sleeping woman. That is considered rape in the US, Australia, and all of the EU
And in the right context its also considered a good way to wake up in all of those same jurisdictions... either that or my wife and I have occasionally raped each other. /sarcasm
Its not like she got drunk, crashed on someones bed at a party, and woke up to him having sex with her. Context should matter. Intent should matter.
The context is they'd already had consensual sex and were sleeping together. On top of that we have no physical evidence that it even occurred except that she said so.
So we're going to internationally extradite him on something that a lot of people are dubious is even really criminal, and which likely would be utterly impossible to prove in court.
Oh, so one way to keep government people off slashdot would be to post the full text of leaked cables? Thanks for the tip, Mr. or Mrs. Not-Implying-Nor-Denying-They're-A-Fed :P
Roman Polanski did much worse than this guy is even accused of and got away with it free and clear, just couldn't come to the US for a long time, with nowhere near the effort from these people. That alone should tell you that the real reason for them attempting to take him so hard is full of crap.
If he ends up extradited to the US and faces ANY charges in the US, I honestly think it is time to grab to touches and pitchforks and indulge in our right to bear arms cause we really have no semblance of an American government left anymore.
Your argument breaks down when you assert that the government has a right to its own secrets. I disagree with that, in a democracy none of the things that were released in the cables should have been secret. The distinction between the privacy of a democratically elected organisation and an individual is obvious. The distinction between the examples in your first paragraph has more to do with the loaded phrases you use, and is less obvious. The only distinction I can conjure up is that in the first case the actor is perhaps acting out of self interest and in the second, perhaps he is not.
IF Mr. Assange can be shown to have *solicited* the data from PFC Manning, then the charge is espionage, which IS a crime in the United States, regardless of where you happen to be sitting when you're collecting your data.
Where you happen to be sitting tends to be extremely important.
US has not tried to extradite spies for a long time (has it ever tried to?) too. So I dont think execution is off the table in this case. And you try harder with your propaganda next time, it shows badly on the US.
As for where the law applies, many laws apply outside territories.
Under what theory of jurisprudence is this valid? Why should Assange be subject to US law any more than I am subject to Thai (the Thai king is an ugly idiot!) or Saudi (Muhammad was a murdering pedofile) law?
Shouldn't I be under extradition to Thailand or Saudi Arabia right now? If not, why not, and why doesn't the same reason apply to Assange?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Ok fine, but how would it hurt the proceedings to compromise in this case? If his fears are legitimate then surely an exception can be made or a guarantee can be made that he won't undergo extradition? If the only reason that the questioning is not being done in the UK is because of sheer bloody mindedness, that what does that say about the people conducting the case? Surely even the two girls allegedly involved in this would benefit from a speedy resolution? Why didn't they question him when he was there, despite him offering...? Why was the case dropped and reopened? Remember the monetary blockade on wikileaks by the US? Remember that they got kicked off amazon and the apple store? Remember that twitter was subpoenaed for users associated with wikileaks by the US government? Remember that death threats were made against Julian Assange by prominent Americans on national tv? Why was an interpol red notice issued for Assange, when even Gaddafi only warranted an orange? Yeah someone sure has questions to answer, but I don't think it's Assange.
American jurisdiction does not apply to foreign citizens on foreign soil at all. Not even for murder, to make things clear. Now if his home country decides that's a crime, that's fine.
Plain. Dead. Wrong.
American jurisdiction, Russian jurisdiction, it does not matter where you are. It matters where the crime is committed. Let me give you an example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Google is your friend. Here's the theory:
http://www.davidzapp.com/2011/11/10/application-of-u-s-laws-outside-u-s/
This one gives a list of potential laws that might be enforced:
www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/94-166.pdf
Note that the crime does not have to be direct. That's why there is the whole "conspiracy to commit."
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Assange would be considered a spy so they'd probably hang him, like they did the Rosenbergs.
According to an article in the New York Times (which I can't find right now, otherwise I'd link to it), nobody outside of the U.S. government/military has ever been prosecuted for publishing information leaked from the U.S. government/military. The prosecution have always backed down because they know they would have to argue that the First Amendment right to publish information that you have obtained about the government does not apply to whoever they're prosecuting, and that a jury may well decide that the First Amendment actually does matter after all. Numerous newpapers have published leaked information, and the New York Times and others actually conspired with Assange to publish the diplomatic cables etc. However, in Assange's case, it's possible that they just plan to put him in front of a military court with a predetermined judge and outcome.
Oh, here's a reference: "No journalist has been prosecuted for publishing leaked information under the Espionage Act." Though it seems a new game is afoot: "Why the WikiLeaks Grand Jury is So Dangerous: Members of Congress Now Want to Prosecute New York Times Journalists Too"
Ecuador - is not a symbol of freedom. Ecuador and its sphere of political influence just want to make some G8 nations look weak in foolish in hopes of boosting their own relevance or tipping power toward other big players they *think* might make better allies.
The USA and the UK movers and shakers won't stand for this. They *will* get Assange eventually, in fact by doing this little stunt with Ecuador, he may well have escalated his case to where he is put into one of these special classes of criminals that really does get disappeared to places like Git-Mo or those CIA blackout locations. You see he offended them and they sought to put him away for a little while and otherwise screw up his life with some nuisance prosecution. To remind him and everyone else its not a good idea to step out of line. The jig up, he has been to slippery up til now, but they CANT let him get away with it , less others might try similar shenanigans and that probably is not good for someone's bottom line.
While I don't think for a second Ecuador has anything but self serving motives, and I don't think they have any high minded ideas about freedom and human rights, I do hope Assange is successful at this point.
I am sad for my country. This is supposed to be the land of free and home of the brave. We are not supposed to need dark rooms and secret proceedings. We are supposed be able to operate within the bounds of our laws, and if we don't like the outcome we are supposed to then have a public discussion and update them via the legislature. We don't use secret executive orders, we are supposed be able to stand on our principles. I support some level of military, I don't think we need to be the worlds super cops but I want us to be able to defend ourselves. With that said I also think if our government is doing anything it can't be open about its not something we ought to be doing at all. If we can't simply own up whats in some diplomatic cables, and if it really does threaten our national security in a meaningful way when they leak, they we are not strong, brave, or free, what we are is weak, cowardly, and enslaved. Stop being weak my fellow Americans! As a nation we need make sure whatever we do its something we can say in public, "yea that was us, it was right, and we are proud of it" either that don't do it.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Between the electric chair and waterboarding, that doesn't even look as bad.
Waterboarding, din't we use to call them swirlies?
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Great Britain and Germany, two Christian nations*, went to war twice in the last century, ultimately resulting in over 90 million people being killed. If you think that the people of any one religion have a monopoly on violence then you are a fool.
* (The official state religion of Britain was, and still is, Christianity. Surveys from that era show 95%+ population of both Germany and Britain reporting as Christian. Heck, some of the troops in World War I stopped fighting on Christmas Day and left the trenches to fraternise with the enemy. That's how Christian they were: they would kill each other on any other day of the year, but not Christmas day.)
This is disgusting. While I'm not Julian Assange's fanboi by any stretch of the imagination; I'd love to see the government that I grew up with grow a pair and at worst say "Well, I guess we're taking this one on the chin", he's to be tried in the country that he comitted the offense, and if he is serve time, to serve time in Australia under prisoner exchange.
At best, I'd rather like seeing Julia Gillard say "By your own rules, Freedom of Speech and press which you enforce on other countries is coming home to roost". Your country hasn't been de-stabilsed, nothing is that differernt. Sure, it's put a few noses out of joint, but why crucify a man over all this. There are many different elements like this in society, time to face up to them.
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
Does that mean that North Korea can demand to have the head of the CIA extradited to stand trial for espionage against North Korea?
I think you're being willfully unreasonable.
The US generally cannot (despite what Hollywood and Slashdotters like to think) just go and grab folks from other sovereign countries without repercussions*. (They can request extradition, and governments have a deep interest in civilized cooperation. But that doesn't apply in this instance.)
If, on the other hand, Assange shows up on American soil, then the U.S. has jurisdiction. Just like the U.K. has jurisdiction while he's in the U.K., or Germany has jurisdiction while he's in Germany, or Papua New Guinea has jurisdiction while he's in PNG.
But even excluding these circumstances, he may well have a legal obligation to keep such information secret. (I stop short of saying he definitely does, because this is the stuff that international law experts debate.) Here's why.
If he is under the jurisdiction of a country with agreements and pacts between them and the U.S., then he is very likely to be obligated to treat American secret documents in the same manner as he is obligated to treat his own nation's secret documents. Like it or not, if you are a citizen of a country then along with the rights of citizenship associated with that nationality you also have legal obligations to uphold that nation's best interests, which includes supporting that nation's relationships with other countries.
In other words, sorry, but you can't just do stuff simply because you feel like it and not expect to face consequences. (Five year old kids know this; so should 40 year old intelligent adults.) And taking actions which could be detrimental to your nation's best interests, which could include actions you know are damaging to your nation's diplomatic partners, falls under the label of "expect to face consequences".
* I know, there are caveats and exceptions. That's why I put in the conditional generally. It's not the rule.
Agreed, it's absurd to call him a traitor to the US. It seems like the US has declared him an enemy. Now, there are two options: 1) send agents to kill him (and it's Australia's prerogative to declare war on the US for assassinating its citizenry) or 2) effect the first option via quasi legal methods.
He's not being obtuse. You're simply repeating his exact point. Americans think that American law applies to everybody on earth, and that nobody else's laws apply to them.
There are so many illegal actions (regarding International treaties) that my mind boggles that you call them no repercussions, From my own country (Germany), the USA has abducted people, put them into Guantanamo[sp?], and didn't bother at all about consequences
Many people have been illegally deported to foreign countries, by the USA, and have been tortured there. No problem at all for the USA government, and for US nationalists out there. Laws are for cowards who can't defend themselves, aren't they?
So, yes, the US can and does grab folks from other sovereign countries without repercussions -- that's what the global dislike of US foreign affairs politics is all about. That you can't see this, speaks volumes.
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
What a stupid, nonsensical question. Why? Two reasons:
1) "possession of cannabis" is not a crime which victimizes the government. Regardless of whether or not you happen to like the *US* government, you cannot be so fucking thick that you don't see the difference between "I have a joint," and "I have (and just published) all of your classified military secrets."
2) ANY country has jurisdiction over a foreigner on foreign soil to the extent that the government with actual jurisdiction over that foreign soil allows them. There's this thing called extradition... I'm surprised you haven't run across it before now, what with all this excitement about Mr. Assange.
What I find intriguing is if Assange had published China state secrets and cables the US would be most likely be providing him with asylum and trumpeting "China oppression of free speech" and "China crackdown on international research dissidents", etc............ It is sad when international laws are broken by a state to make an example of one person with the intent to scare the rest of humanity into blind submission.
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Actually, no, it isn't. What's important is whether or not the US government can convince the government of "where he happens to be sitting" to extradite him.
You don't get a "free pass" to commit espionage simply because you're sitting outside the country you're targeting - it may make it easier to get away with, but it doesn't grant you some magical immunity.
There media is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/world/europe/suspense-ahead-of-verdict-for-jailed-russian-punk-band.html?pagewanted=all From the article: Human rights groups and Western governments, including the United States, immediately criticized the verdict as unjust and the sentence as unduly severe.
Real men don't need signitures!!!
"possession of cannabis" is not a crime which victimizes the government. Regardless of whether or not you happen to like the *US* government, you cannot be so fucking thick that you don't see the difference between "I have a joint," and "I have (and just published) all of your classified military secrets."
So, the guiding principle is that embarrassing the US government justifies any person in the world being extradited and dragged back to the US to be tried and punished?
In any case "having" and "publishing" military secrets of a foreign country isn't in itself a crime. It's actively stealing them that is, and Assange didn't do that.
That's because it's Wikimedia...
Boy, if you think the Streisand Effect is bad, just wait for the Assange Effect. Making an example of him is about the worst thing they can do...
Protip: Assange in ur base, leakin' ur cables -- So, the people who are the leaks will just continue to leak, after having selected a new mouthpiece / shield. The next guy might not be as much of an asshole... From the US gov's perspective, they should be glad they didn't get someone who was harder to smear. Like some basement dwelling virgin who just wants to free all information...
Really? That's new to me. Apparently no one informed Time either
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
You can't steal information. You can only suppress or share it.
He's not being obtuse. You're simply repeating his exact point. Americans think that American law applies to everybody on earth, and that nobody else's laws apply to them.
Not only do we think that, but as long as the other countries keep bowing to our government's will, then I'd say the belief is mostly correct.
Who decides what is and isn't ethical? Have we all ceded that responsibility to Mr. Assange and not our elected officials?
Mr. Assange (and Mr. Manning, et al) gave us the access to decide for ourselves. Our paid-for and appointed officials and their corporate cronies don't trust us that much.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
As it stands now, he is facing a serious sex-crimes investigation in Sweden, which he did to himself, by-the-way.
Would that be the investigation that was already conducted in Sweden while he was there? The investigation that was closed due to insufficient evidence or whatever and Assange given formal permission to leave?
Also, how can you be accused of a sex crime that you did to yourself? Is masturbation illegal in Sweden.
It seems pretty clear that the new investigator is receiving large sums of money from the US to keep this going. When it comes to Sweden the CIA are like kids in a candy shop. Every person they see they want to buy. I wonder if the CIA had to pay more than the RIAA/MPAA paid their investigator. Probably.
If Assange returns to Sweden I hope he has enough sense to avoid having sex with any Swedish girls. Instead of snatching him, the US may have plans to frame him again. If not for rape, the real kind this time, for murder or necrophilia/pedophilia. Something utterly humiliating. The US may not want the political fallout from snatching Assange and taking him to Gitmo. Discrediting him some more may be sufficient.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Lets wake up a bit here. There is a quite vibrant information business. Every country with anything more advanced than a mule has an eye out for a weak link. Manning was that link. He felt he was doing the right thing and wanted to share this information in hopes to curb further actions. Now being a naive kid in the military if Wikileaks was not available, who is to say another country wouldn't have befriended him and honed his information gathering to much more sensitive data?
Sites like Wikileaks can indeed do harm but also great good. How about if a city is about to be attacked in some manor and you had this information but knew no one around you would help you spread the word(maybe even kill you for the idea)? A site like this can help and these types of situations, just by virtue of probability, these are happening every day.
So do we propose we proceed with caution and disallow any information being shared with out some sort of explicit approval process? Or do we allow all information regardless of nature or origin to be expressed?
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
In Cuba you'd be immune from extradition and prosecution. Or any other country that does not have an extradition treaty with the US. Also a boat in international waters, most islands in the southern ocean, and Antarctica.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
And even concerns about God is secondary... I remember hearing a story told by a Jewish guy, went something like this:
A man goes to his Rabbi and says 'Rabbi, I know I'm not supposed to hate people but theres this group of people I really hate.'
The Rabbi says to him 'What kind of people bring out such feelings in you??'
The man says 'Atheists. They are just evil and wrong and I hate them.'
The Rabbi says 'You know, there is a time when its very important to be an atheist...'
The man is thinking 'How is this possible? My Rabbi tells me there is a time when its right to be an atheist??'
The Rabbi continues; 'If you are walking down the street and you see some unfortunate person who needs your help, then it is right time to be an atheist. Because you should help that person; not because God is standing over you telling you that you should BUT BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO'.
Ethics and morality are beyond good and evil, beyond law and government, beyond god or gods. It is about being a better human being and helping others to be better human beings. To move the human race further from the bestial and closer to the superhuman.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
No. First shoot the police. Then their masters. Without the police their evil bosses have no power.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
He hasn't been charged with anything, and he doesn't become a criminal until after he is convicted.
Assange hasn't had to be charged, tried, or convicted to demonstrate his dodgy nature: he has made himself a fugitive from the law.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
In one case, the actor posts the information to express to the world the tyranny under which they live to maybe just someday restore some kind of liberty in their lives, at great risk to their own life. In the other case the actor posts the information with the express purpose of shaming and harming the government that authored them.
In what way is motive relevant? And even if it is relevant where is your evidence of Assange's motive? His motive may have been precisely the same as your hypothetical Syrian. The US government absolutely does not care about Assange's motives. They only care that he released classified military documents and would like to make an example of him if at all possible in order to discourage such behavior in future.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Let's see what would happen if we applied that principle to other countries. Here's a hypothetical based on an actual incident:
Suppose an American newspaper editor solicited a Chinese scientist to send him data on mining in China -- the kind of data that is routinely disclosed in the U.S. but which is considered a state secret in China.
So China charges the American newspaper editor with espionage and conspiracy to commit espionage. Would the U.S. allow the editor to be extradited? Obviously not. But that's what they seem to want Australia and maybe Sweden to do.
Assange was never in the U.S. None of his disclosures was a crime in the countries he was in. I don't see how Assange committed any crime.
Of course the U.S. claims international jurisdiction all the time, which is essentially "Might makes right." It's a bad precedent when others start doing it to our nationals.
Whether or not you believe the US has any interest in prosecuting Assange or holding him in Gitmo, Assange clearly does believe it. He is not afraid of the possibility that the new American-bought investigator will decide to charge him with something after all, although the obvious corruption may give him pause. If investigators can be bought then judges could be as well. He is afraid of spending the rest of his life in Gitmo being tortured and humiliated for the amusement of his captors, and I don't blame him.
Now he's totally screwed. The Brits may not break into the embassy, but they certainly will arrest and extradite him as soon as he leaves and he will have to leave eventually. In Sweden it's possible he may have a chance to escape and sneak out of Sweden and get his ass to a country with no extradition treaties with the US, the UK, or Sweden.
Assange's error was in not being sufficiently risk averse. He knew that the US would want his head on a stick. The least precaution he could have taken would have been to flee to a country with no extradition treaty with the US. He took a gamble going for Swedish citizenship and then seeking 'asylum' in the UK.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
If you are not in a country, or a citizen of the country you are not obligated to obey that country's laws. Period.
I, and a vast majority of the UK completely agree. Unfortunately the US government does not and the spineless UK governments we have had for the past few elections have let them get away with it.
However I think it very unlikely that the US would want to try to extradite him from Sweden. Why not do it from the UK? The standard of evidence is minimal, whatever you are accused of does not have to be a crime in the UK, you don't even have to have ever even visited the US and even when over 90% of the populace disagree with it the home secretary will stil approve the extradition. I have trouble believing it will be that easy to extradite him from Sweden!
But governments have the right to their own secrets.
That depends on the secrets. After seeing some of the stuff in the cables (like the "dancing boy" story), I'm inclined to believe that, no, the government of the United States does not have any right whatsoever to keep that secret.
You apparently didn't bother to actually read the linked document with the statement from the retired (2008) prosecutor. If you had you would have picked up the fact that the next step in the Swedish legal process is getting a detailed statement from Assange to decide if he should be charged and prosecuted - the very thing that Assange is resisting to the point of becoming a fugitive from justice, causing his supporters to lose the money they put up for bail, and causing an international incident and damaging the diplomatic relations of numerous countries*. The retired prosecutor says many mistakes were made, is highly critical of various actions, but ultimately the process emerges: Assange must be interviewed again before he can be charged. You did an inadvertent service - I thank you.
*How WikiLeaks Blew It
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
the Foreign Office has not said whether or not May intends to exercise her powers to allow for any potential future extradition to the US.
If my life ever relies on Theresa May making the right decision instead of the politically expedient one, I can only hope I get her first.
Or do you REALLY think it's safe to go off on your own and start soliciting secrets from, say, North Korea, Russia or the still-somewhat-in-power Assad regime in Syria? And then publishing what you find on the internet?
Sure. If anybody in those countries would like to contact me and share state secrets, I'll stick 'em on a website.
I'm not American. I'm not in America. I'm using an American hosted website and that means the US would argue they could extradite me for the words I write on here, but I've already told my MP that's a bullshit situation and we need to change the law.
If I go to the US and commit a crime there, sure, prosecute me. Right now I'm sat at home in the UK and I refuse to obey any country's laws except those of the UK.
As I understand it, the first WikiLeaks dumps redacted names, the later ones did not. That could (not necessarily did) cause life ending harm to those individuals listed in the documents. That is the line that was crossed. No longer journalism. No longer free speach. That, if it is true, is the definition of an enemy of the state and fair game for retribution at the highest level by the governments that wish to protect the individuals in harms way. Big game, big consequences.
Also, quoting Eric Schmidt, "if one has to keep something secret, he should not have done it in the first place".
Eric, I would very much appreciate it if you'd supply me with your credit card no's and their associated PINs, and your SocSec no. and ..., please and thankyou. Since you eschew secrecy, you should have no qualms regarding this. Hey, you can have mine too in return, for what they're worth.
"Too many secrets." -- Sneakers.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Ya see, that's where i think you are wrong. I think the USSA milicom really don't give a rat's ass WHAT anybody else thinks and they know simply doing a framejob on Assange wouldn't make him an "example" of what happens when you don't kiss the ring. If all they wanted to do was get him out of the way I bet slipping something in his food really wouldn't be that hard, or hell just a shot through a window by "an unknown assailant" would do the job.
No friend what they want is a classic Soviet style show trial, where they can paint his ass with the MSM to be one step lower than Stalin and then throw him in the nastiest pen they can find and start making PMITA prison jokes about his little white ass. That way anybody in the future that gets anything classified from the USA, even if it showed the CIA popping Kennedy while giving the finger to the camera, will be so damned scared shitless of ending up in the same deep dank hole as Assange they'll just tear it up and pretend they never saw it.
Never underestimate the power of fear and the chilling effect, nor the feeling of untouchablility of those in power. Hell notice how quickly the world press stop giving a shit about the torture of Manning? or all the dirty evil shit in those leaks? Its been reported for years there are CIA moles in several major world MSM outlets so it wouldn't be hard to manufacture some "ZOMFG did you hear that celeb is teh gay?" story if they get tired of hearing how Assange is being bashed and buttraped and by then anybody who could be in a position to get the next leak will have already gotten the message...don't you dare publish jack shit without permission.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Simple what happened friend, the CIA. Ever since the war ended back in 45 the CIA just kept finding new places to stir up shit and often would get in bed with the corps while doing it, such as the coup in Iran in 56 that replaced a democratically elected president for the Shah who promised to kiss BP's ass if they made him ruler. Ever since then its been one corrupt deal after another, one nasty play after another, and with each passing year they just got more vicious and ugly. Look at this map friend and ask yourself why? Why would they want to stir up that much hatred for the USA and slaughter that many?
Because conflict is big business, they've known that since WWII and that is why we lose more of our liberties every year, they find more bogeyman to declare war on, more reasons to siphon money to their friends in the MIC, and with each bombing or coup they stir hatred for the USA which means more potential targets and more money.
Sadly thanks to the spooks and the MIC this country has become a death machine, producing war and suffering everywhere so some rich old soulless bastards can squeeze a little more profit and build a little larger empire.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
+1 succinct
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
This is a lie.
Assange is not resisting giving a statement - quite the contrary - he's resisting being extradited to a country known to co-operate in cases of extraordinary rendition with another country that has for the last decade demonstrated its willingness to operate outside not only international law and treaty, but common decency.
Assange has made it quite clear he will co-operate with an interview in the UK, something Swedish prosecutors have been happy to do in other cases but not, strangely, in this one.
The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
Its called, Everything Is illegal, but at the cops desgresion, welcome to east germany.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
They've destroyed his reputation by labelling him as a sex criminal far too kinky for Sweden so I don't think they'll be much of a backlash in the USA, which is ultimately what is cared about by the people trying to make his life difficult due to the heinous crime of embarrassing them. Even the hard core libertarians on this site that keep raving on about how they need their guns for the revolution seem to have decided that Assange is some sort of traitor, and that his lack of US citizenship, residency or even presence is just some sort of technicality.
He's an easy target since he doesn't have Rupert Murdoch or similar behind him.
The US is more intent on silliness like this; they've cut budgets massively for anything to do with space, science, technology - and put more towards war, "defense spending", "security spending" - and moreso even towards protecting the "rights" of monster corporations (including the RIAA and all that that entails). Not surprising in the least - and most "netizens" already knew this from the beginning; regardless of the spew that spouts forth from the US government's media machine - along with their Australian cousin. Yet another sign of the decline of the US's government, and their failure at striving for greatness. Oh, yeah, ditto for the Australian government. What's with all those "secret" treaties the Aussies have signed with the Department of Homeland Security and the likes? Hmmm....
YankDownUnder Veni, Vidi, volo in domum redire
OBL was on the cia payroll, so technically, their last big kill job was him .
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Yes, and going on a previous case, after that the military appointed lawyer will then have to leave the military and then find another country to live in if they want to practice law.
It's a truly fucked up show trial system that resembles the sort of show trials we hate North Korea for, and punishes the participants that try to treat it like a legal system.
I've read the police report, It's about a crime, period.
The accusations about the Swedish judicial system and about the girls working for the states are paranoid at best.
This is why Sweden as a democracy can't guarantee him anything:
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/asyl-till-assange-ar-ett-slag-i-luften
"Foreign minister Patino [Equador] claimed that it sought to obtain guarantees
from Sweden that Assange would not be extradited in the event of a request
from the United States. According to Ove Bring [professor of international law],
it would be completely unreasonable for Sweden to issue such guarantees.
- Who would guarantee that? The Swedish Supreme Court can't anticipate
it's own trial. If there is such a request, it must be handled the conventional way.
- The government can overturn the extradition even thought the Supreme Court has
ruled in favor of it. But at the current point in time, the goverment can give no such assurances.
That would mean that the government would overrun the whole judicial system and said that
whatever the courts decide mean nothing. That's not the way a democracy works, Ove Bring says."
It's still a huge moral jump between using a drone on somebody that's a quasi-military target and poisoning somebody with Polonium. I get the idea that whatever professional portions of the US intelligence community that survived Bush wouldn't stand for something like that. Assassinations are a big deal and very hard to keep secret, which I suppose is why Russia even leave a calling card (Polonium is rarer than Plutonium, doesn't exist in nature and only comes from a small number of Russian reactors) and Mossad don't care who knows they do it.
The Slashdot title is definitely misleading as jbeaupre points out.
The weak link was the system Manning and three million others had access to. Anyone with the resources to buy out any of those three million people could have had access to all of that information. At a second step I suspect anyone with the right connections could probably have bought all of that and more from China or a variety of other countries without directly trying to compromise a user of that system themselves.
Espionage is illegal by international law and treaty.
Has nothing to do with jurisdiction.
You are being deliberately obtuse, sticking head in the sand refusing to think logically.
You think you're being logical, but you're ignoring key facts: Espionage is illegal by international law and treaty.
Yes everybody does it, and everybody knows everybody does it. But that doesn't stop them from prosecuting when the individual agents get caught. Those operating under embassy immunity just get deported. those operating under a more clandestine operation can face jail time, or worse, but also face a good possibility of exchange after a period of a few years.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Again, who mods this crap insightful?
Americans do not think that american law applies to everyone.
International laws and treaties do however.
And espionage is illegal, everywhere. That's why the posited 2 scenarios and the distinction between them are very important.
But /. has a very heavy general anti american bias, and anything bashing them gets an automatic +5 Insightful, regardless of content.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Thank you. Exactly. Finally someone on /. with a clue about this stuff not just repeating the same "stupid americans" rhetoric.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Call BS without citations. Akin to the "he did it on purpose" argument of a 5 year old, or the more recent "Ryan hates women and mexicans" claim from rolling stone ragazine. Tell me, did the US also destroy its own buildings to start a war in the middle east? Cause all i see is standard conspiracy i have no proof but EVERYONE KNOWS its true clap trap and rhetoric.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
If you are not in a country, or a citizen of the country you are not obligated to obey that country's laws. Period.
By your logic Osama Bin Laden was innocent. He was a foreigner on foreign soil so the U.S. had no right to go after him. Period.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
There's no theory there. There is a blanket assertion that we can do this and we will. What I'm asking is how can that be just?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It's worse than that, if they play by the rules completely. As I understand it, even classified information that is widely known is still classified, and has to be handled with silly procedures. Jefferson Lab's computer account rules include the following, for instance: "We handle no classified information at JLab. If you find some on a JLab computer system, that computer system should be considered contaminated. Don't attempt to remove the information yourself; call the Office of Security Wankage." If people are actually playing by the rules, then it's possible to cause something of a DoS condition by spamming people with classified information.
The men in the black SUVs have visited the network offices this morning to make sure everything goes smoothly.
No sig today...
From the testimony of Sofia Wilén (http://rixstep.com/1/20110131,00.shtml):
They had foreplay, they carried on for hours. They slept. They woke up and had sex. They slept. They woke and had sex again. They slept. They woke and had sex again. They had breakfast. They had sex again. They slept. He woke her up by penetrating her without a condom, which she had earlier said she didn't want. They spoke. She let him continue. They spoke some more.
Raaaaaaaaaaaape.
No wonder there's an international manhunt for Assange. How Sofia is going to rebuild her shattered life is anyone's guess.
Shouldn't I be under extradition to Thailand or Saudi Arabia right now? If not, why not, and why doesn't the same reason apply to Assange?
The answer, as you know, is obvious:
The US has a bigger army and more economic clout.
AFAIK, espionage is a "red handed" diplomatic crime. That is, you need to catch them at it on your soil, or else apply pressure through diplomatic means to have the individual moved on to your soil for trial.
Which, of course, is exactly what we're talking about here. Assange was never on US soil, so the US went with option 2 -- and has so far failed.
You're wrong. Articles about the cables like this one appeared months before the women even talked to the police. The three months after was just when they started releasing the cables.
How does this refute "I find the timing of the sex charges too coincidental to pass the smell test?"
He didn't piss people off by acquiring the cables; he pissed people off by releasing them to the public.
Every country with anything more advanced than a mule has an eye out for a weak link. Manning was that link. He felt he was doing the right thing and wanted to share this information in hopes to curb further actions. Now being a naive kid in the military if Wikileaks was not available, who is to say another country wouldn't have befriended him and honed his information gathering to much more sensitive data?
It used to be how they (especially the Soviet Union) got their spies..Many a spy was roped in, not for the money, but because they had been somehow fooled into thinking they were doing the "right thing" for the world. Now that communism appears to be slowly re-entering Russian politics, I wonder if there'll be a return to that..
You might want to reduce the threshold there. I wasn't replying to that post, but to one by an AC.
Dilbert RSS feed
I think it's already been pretty well discussed earlier in the thread, but extradition from the UK involves a lot of red tape and a lot of conditions as to the treatment of the prisoner.
Sweden and the US have what is essentially a "borrowing" clause that sidesteps extradition completely and lets the US temporarily take custody of Swedish prisoners with very minimal oversight.
Again, a stupid, nonsensical question.
The "guiding principle" is that, when you commit espionage against ANY government, you can expect that government to want to get their hands on you. The only limiting factor is whether or not they can convince the country you're sitting in to take you into custody and hand you over.
Now as for espionage, "having" and "publishing" secrets is not espionage, you're right; "developing contacts in the military/intelligence community in order to get access to classified secrets" certainly crosses the line, and it would be up to the US to prove that Mr. Assange did that, if they wanted to make a case to extradite him to face espionage charges. I know it's fashionable here to blithely assert that "Assange didn't do that," but since you and I both have no real clue what evidence exists in the matter, the assertion is at best baseless speculation, and at worst, completely wrong. Assange claims he didn't do anything wrong, and I'm inclined to believe that he was a passive recipient, simply because he's smart enough to know better. Strangely, the US government, not contradicted his assertion - they are investigating the incident to see if there's evidence of wrongdoing, but there has been no allegations laid that have any legal basis. But again, since we don't know the facts of the case, we can't really conclude one way or another with any certainty.
Government corruption in the US has exceeded all previous levels. The election system has been stolen in more than one past election. It's unclear how much of the current system can be salvaged without a wholesale meltdown & overthrow. As for the chances of that happening anytime soon -- I've though them low, but as I read of the corruption charges rising and the continued sell-out of the American people by both parties (I was pro obama, but lately he's done anything but live up to his even a remote shadow of his promise).
Tea partiers have the right idea if they weren't all manipulated and p0wned by a bunch of right wing conservative think tanks. At least a few of them realize that the problem now, IS the government. A large controlling government making decisions that are not responsible to and not in the best interests of the people governed is no longer a government "of the people".
We need a new government that will again be responsible to and "of the people" and not to the corporations (the wealthy who've formed protective non-living bodies around them)....
Julian Assange is not a traitor. The Rosenbergs were. You cannot be a declared an open citizen of another country and be a "traitor" to another. What he did was not even a crime, and the notion of extradition is dubious.
Totally agree. Assange is an Australian citizen who was working in the UK or Sweden publishing documents it is perfectly legal to publish in those countries. The Pentagon Papers of 30 years ago demonstrated it would also be legal for an American citizen to do the same in the United States. Yes, the powers that be will illegally harass you and waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money in the process, but they very much want to discourage people who might expose their crimes. All these incidents tell world is that the United States is run by amoral criminal elements. Nothing new there.
Only boring people are ever bored.
Which is why the USA would go for the classic "lone gunman" bit. Hell he's walking around a ground floor right passed windows constantly, it really wouldn't be hard. After a week or two "investigation" they find a nut dead with a note talking about how "Assange caused the death of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan!" and it would be cased close, bring on the next celeb scandal.
But the fact he has published and so far gotten away with it wouldn't be changed by that, hell those that might be in a position to publish might even buy the story and think if they are just more careful than Assange they could get away with it. Nope what they want is to publicly drag him through a show trial and dump him in a hole and to do THAT they need to grab him. I have a feeling he'll end up dragged out of Ecuador after the USA gives the UK a call and tells them to let his ass go, easier to snatch him once the heat dies down.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
If they are free and easy to get, how does having an account make a shred of difference? I'm so tired of that idiot reasoning on slashdot.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
You don't get a "free pass" to commit espionage simply because you're sitting outside the country you're targeting
As it happens, I'm sitting in Canada, and I'm not aware of any Canadian law that prohibits committing espionage against other countries while sitting here. There's laws against committing espionage against Canada, but that's it.
So if I'm committing espionage against Brazil, and Brazil phones Canada and asks them to extradite me... Canada's attitude is pretty much "What he is doing is not illegal here".
For Canada to arrest and extradite me, they'd have to recognize what I was doing was criminal. And there isn't any Canadian law against "espionage against Brazil".
The context is they'd already had consensual sex and were sleeping together. On top of that we have no physical evidence that it even occurred except that she said so.
And the further context is that she repeated and consistently insisted that he used a condom when the had sex. He is accused of having unprotected sex with her without her consent, clearly knowing that it was against her wishes to do so. I don't care how many times they'd had consensual sex before, what he is accused of is still rape given that context.
Wikipedia article, with 152 checked citations.
You're welcome.
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
Ah, that is a different question that the one you posed before. The concept of something being just isn't constrained by jurisdiction. If you give someone a gun and tell them to kill a third party in a different country, and they do, it would obviously be just to hunt you down (how you are hunted is yet a different matter). How about just telling them to kill? Or telling them to steal something?
The theory is that if you are involved in a statute crime involving US interests, it is just to seek you out for punishment.
You can argue if something should be a crime, or the level of involvement. You can also argue if seeking someone is worth it (i.e. conspiracy to jaywalk). But that's the theory.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.